Senior Project / Research

ReadCube is an online tool for searching/organizing articles.  There is also an online tutorial.  This might be useful for student research.

Web. 2.0 Tools for Educators

EVERYBODY NEEDS TO REVIEW THIS LIST:


http://pinterest.com/esheninger/web-2-0-tools-for-educators/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scottmcleoddelicious+%28Scott+McLeod%27s+Delicious+Bookmarks%29

A treasure trove of Web. 2.0 tools for education.  Some of them I use, others I've heard of, and a great many of them are new to me.  This list is going to take a while to comb through.  

iPads in the Classroom

Here is a blog from edutopia.org on using iPads in the classroom.  Kind of light fare, but relevant nonetheless.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/ipads-transform-classroom-ben-johnson

Professional Development / Teacher Education

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”  This quote reminded me of Paulo Freire's "banking concept" of education - "students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor."  The quote is from an article about teacher "preparation" and professional development.  It also has a paragraph on Madeline Hunter ("7 Step Lesson") and, according to the author, the perversion of Hunter's work.

The article is worth reading in preparation of common planning time and professional development in general.  It has nothing to do with 440 "scripts" but ongoing exchange and listening. 


Here's the article: "Is filling the pail any way to train teachers?"

(This is a 1985 article written by Hunter challenging how her "methods" are used:  "What's Wrong with Madeline Hunter" by Madeline Hunter.)

Ford PAS

The Philadelphia Academies professional development included two simulations from "Ford PAS."   To access the simulations / units/ modules, you have to register.  Most units / modules appear more appropriate for Academy courses (e.g. business) but there are some that fit with science and economics. (They do have a link to an interdisciplinary chart.) Since the units/ modules are produced by a corporation, the "point of view" is evident. 

This is something I'd like to discuss in the 2012-2013 school year - space for multiple perspectives.  The PBL critieria does not overtly include multiple perspectives but to me, if this is based on student interest / needs, then it is essential.  There shouldn't  be a  "correct" answer or way or doing something if the work is real to the students. This does not mean we don't show students  standards for formatting a research paper, writing citations / works cited pages, eliminating "Junk" web sites ("crap detection" with web sites), illogical conclusions in an experiment, unsubstantiated data, ETC.  Rather, multiple perspectives may be similar to "critical thinking" or "higher order thinking" but it also overtly  acknowledges and honors many points of view / life experiences.  I'm not sure how to consistently embrace multiple perspectives with PBL but I hope it is one topic we can discuss in 2012-2013.

What makes a project authentic?

This list is from an Edutopia blog post by John Larmer .  While I find the list helpful in clarifying components of PBL, there are few projects other than semester or year long projects such as a Senior Project, which will meet all criteria.  It might be helpful when planning to find ways to incorporate a couple criteria in each unit with the goal of an annual project which culminates the 4 criteria.  Another use of the list may be to discuss what are "the basics" needed for any unit to include PBL. 

A project can be authentic in four ways, some of which may be combined in one project:

1. The project meets a real need in the world beyond the classroom, or the products that students create are used by real people.
   For example:
   • Students propose designs for a new play area in a nearby park.
   • Students plan and execute an environmental clean-up effort in their community.
   • Students create a website for young people about books they like.
   • Students write a guide and produce podcasts for visitors to historic sites in their county.
   • Students serve as consultants to local businesses, advising them on how to increase sales to young people.
   • Students develop a conflict resolution plan for their school.
2. The project focuses on a problem, issue or topic that is relevant to students' lives -- the more directly, the better -- or on a problem or issue that is actually being faced by adults in the world students will soon enter.
   For example:
   • Students create multimedia presentations that explore the question, "How do we make and lose friends?"
   • Students learn physics by investigating the question, "Why don't I fall off my skateboard?"
   • Students form task forces to study possible effects of climate change on their community and recommend actions that could be taken.
   • Students decide whether the U.S. should intervene in a conflict inside another country that is causing a humanitarian crisis.
3. The project sets up a scenario or simulation that is realistic, even if it is fictitious.
   For example:
   • Students are asked by the Archbishop of Mexico in 1818 to recommend a location for the 22nd mission in California. (This happens to be a featured project on BIE's new online program, PBLU.org.)
   • Students act as architects who need to design a theatre that holds the maximum number of people, given constraints of available land, cost, safety, comfort, etc.
   • Students play the role of United Nations advisors to a country that has just overthrown a dictator and needs advice about how to start a democracy.
   • Students recommend which planet in our solar system ought to be explored by the next space probe as they compete for NASA funding.
   • Students are asked to propose ideas for a new TV reality show that educates viewers about science topics such as evolutionary biology and the geologic history of the earth.
4. The project involves tools, tasks or processes used by adults in real settings and by professionals in the workplace. (This criterion for authenticity could apply to any of the above examples of projects.)
   For example:
   • Students investigating the physics of skateboarding test various surfaces for speed, using the scientific method and tools scientists use.
   • Students exploring the issue of how we make and lose friends conduct surveys, analyze data, record video interviews, and use online editing tools to assemble their presentations.
   • Students acting as U.N advisors to an emerging democracy analyze existing constitutions, write formal reports, and present recommendations to a panel.

Anatomy of a WebQuest, Pt. I

The Signing of the Declaration

I am interested in learning about the American Revolution, the framing of the Constitution, and the Founding Fathers.

Students, I have discovered, not so much. 

Such is the plight of the English 3 teacher upon arrival at Unit Three of the Planning and Scheduling Timeline, "Getting to Know the Colonials."

It started out fluidly enough with a mini unit on Ben Franklin, he of the wit, the wisdom, and the lascivious appetite.  Poor Richard's Almanack was a hit, excerpts from the Autobiography bordered on tolerable, and the overall interest level was a 7.7/10.  Not too bad.

Then Patrick Henry happened.

You know Patrick Henry.  He's the "Give me liberty or give me death" guy that helped to foment popular support for rebelling against the British crown's unfair system of taxation sans Parliamentary representation.  It's a great line--one of the greatest in American rhetoric--but it's the final line of his Speech to the Virginia Delegation, and it takes an effort worthy of Hercules in the Augean stables to get to that point.

As an aside, no less an historical giant than Thomas Jefferson claimed that Henry was the greatest public speaker and debater that he had ever encountered, and that when one found themselves on the opposite side of a Patrick Henry debate, the only chance that they had of winning was to "devoutly pray for his death."

But as I surveyed the room and saw students slipping into what appeared to be a catatonic state, I could see that they didn't care what Thomas Jefferson thought, and that they didn't give a DAMN for Patrick Henry's genius as a debater.

This was Friday.  The lesson ended, the textbooks strewn hastily and unclosed on desktops, and my students shuffled glumly out of the room without even acknowledging my existence, much less Patrick Henry's.  To continue in this vein would have been folly.

So I had to ask myself the big question: What was I trying to accomplish?  What knowledge was I trying to impart about the American Revolution and our nation's founders?

First, it was an appreciation for the key players, individuals of towering greatness and ambition running amok inside of an idea when there was still new thought and action to be discovered beneath the sun.  There were immutable figures of stoicism, valor, and nobility (Washington), rarefied polymaths (Franklin and Jefferson), and groundbreaking political philosophers (Adams, Hamilton, and Madison).  Fascinating people, all living, collaborating, and arguing at the epicenter of American posterity.     

And yet, these great propagators of freedom either participated in or did nothing about the institution of slavery, the quintessential evil of American life.

So that was it.  This paradox, one of the greatest in the annals of humanity, was what I wanted my students to study.  Now I just needed a vehicle to deliver this critical inquiry...


(To be continued in Pt. II)

 

An Eye on Next Year

As I look forward to developing a curriculum for English 4 next year, I am also looking at developing a system of Project Based Learning that helps to deliver the content.  To that end, a rough approximation of the content that I am considering is as follows:

1. An introductory unit on hero archetypes, particularly Epic and Tragic Heroes-
• Beowulf
• Oedipus
2.  A unit on Dystopian literature and film-
• 1984
• Lord of the Flies
• Brave New World
3. A re-tooled Senior Project

For the literature units, it is likely that I will develop WebQuests to deliver a large portion of the material.  This isn't enough, though, as I will need to engage students in using tech tools such as iMovie, Web 2.0 applications, and other methods to fulfill the "Public Audience" aspect of PBL.

Implementing Senior Projects in the mold of PBL appears to be the most pressing issue, for I am becoming increasingly more concerned that students are learning very little from the way research is currently taught.

Feedback, suggestions, and tips are welcome and encouraged.

This article features a school in Texas - Manor New Technology High School - which is all project based.  The video provides a look at how two teachers collaborate when designing a project. 

Project Based Learning at Manor New Tech HS

Visit to Hillcrest High School (Queens, NY)

We went to this school in Queens today to represent our school and help inform us with decisions around the overhaul of academies at Furness. After being there for a few hours (and I know a few hours is barely enough time to even begin understanding a school), I wanted to write down the things that make Hillcrest "work"...generally speaking:

(1.) Staff

- 98% of the teachers (thats 147 of the 150 in the building) were hand-picked by the principal and/or a member of his leadership team. It shows. 

- A lot of time, resources, and money is spent to develop the staff. They have a rubric based on the Danielson Framework so there's a consistency of what "good teaching" looks like, and administration is in classrooms a lot. No one works in isolation. 

- There's a leadership role, it seems, for the majority of the staff - nearly everyone has their niche. Teachers feel like they are part of the success of the school. 

*So they get who they want, empower them so they don't leave, and then train/develop their staff (who again, stay). 

(2.) PLCs

- I don't think it was PACs goal for us to see this, but what Hillcrest showed us is that it doesn't matter what the hell your academies are - what matters is how they're set up and the support you give them. Each of the nine learning communities had their own guidance counsellor, their own section of the building, hours each week for teachers to collaborate and discuss students & trends, their own AP...essentially each learning community was its own school. Both staff and students felt like they were part of a team and the word "family" came up A LOT. 

(3.) Common Planning Time

- Different schedules each week - but within every "two week block", teachers have alloted time to meet departmentally, by academy, and with guidance counsellors to discuss PD, Danielson, assessment, trends, and students. 

This isn't a list of things that we should try to implement - many we have no control over - but its traits we saw first-hand at a very large school and should always keep in mind. But maybe the question worth discussing is what's something we can begin working on short-term and long-term from this visit that would have a positive impact on our school community?

PBL website

Here is a great website I found.

http://www.pbl-online.org/

It  helps you develop PBL's. It also has several PBL examples and templates for all subject areas.

http://www.bie.org/videos/video/it_really_actually_changed_my_life

Project Based Learning video about a student who was positively affected by PBL. The video may or may not work in the schools. You may have to watch it at home.

Project Based Learning Text

Project-Based Learning by William N. Bender

A hard copy of this text will soon be in the hands of all teaching faculty.  Until then, here is a link to the text on Google Books: http://books.google.com/books/about/Project_Based_Learning.html?id=UL0-vVkipKwC.

Senior Projects are Boring

Boring Things: British Literature

Senior Projects are (mostly) boring, right?

Boring for students to research and write, boring for instructors to facilitate and grade, and boring for observers to observe.   

This is not some disembodied, abstract criticism.  After all, I had a significant stake in creating the format for our Senior Projects here at Furness.  I envisioned the theme (Issues in Contemporary Society), I helped to compile the topics, I set the guidelines, and I developed the presentation criteria.  From the root to the fruit, I am responsible for a great deal of it.

This means that I am, by logical extension, boring.

It's time to rethink Senior Projects, and PBL provides a great format in which to do so.  To be fair, there are certain elements of the Senior Project that are indispensable; conducting research, using MLA/APA citation, and public speaking are all necessary attributes that are going nowhere.  Still, these are just the contours of the content, NOT the content itself.   

Donna Sharer recently shared with me the curriculum for something called "Student Voices"  that we may want to review in determining a new course for Senior Projects.  The link to the curriculum is right here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/94301129/Student-Voices-Senior-Project.  Please review it and share your thoughts on how we might reformat the Senior Project at Furness in the mold of PBL. 

The Big Flip...

This is a really interesting concept that I have been looking into for next year. A recent seminar at Rowan University was very enlightening. I think it could be an interesting way of incorporating Project-based Learning principles...

Of Synonyms...

Actually, let's see if we can stop saying "autonomy."  Here is a list of acceptable synonyms from which to choose:
 
ability, aptitude, autarchy, autonomy , home rule, license, qualification, self-determination, self-government, self-reliance, self-rule, self-sufficiency, separation, sovereignty

First Post!

"Silver in the mine."

Furness's flirtation with Project Based Learning started when Mr. McKenna first spoke the word "Autonomy."  Without completing an exhaustive review of the measures that have brought the School District of Philadelphia to this oft-repeated utterance, it should be noted that it spurred a discussion about what Furness would do if we could indeed do anything we wanted.  McKenna's response was that PBL just seemed so much more interesting and practical than the other alternatives out there, many of which we have had direct experience with.  

Direct, sometimes boring, and sometimes excruciating experience.

Pursuant to this, Sam Riccobono, Chris Steveline, Cliff Breese and I attended the 2012 ASCD Conference in Philadelphia, where we participated in a session on PBL by the Buck Institute for Education (http://www.bie.org/).  Short of saying that we experienced some sort of epiphany or rapture, we left the session feeling that PBL was indeed a very good idea.  

A good idea, yes.  Hopefully even a great one.  But as Ben Franklin put it in Poor Richard's Almanack, "Genius without education is like silver in the mine."

Now comes the real work.